LATERAL THINKING PUZZLES

1. You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night when you pass by
a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:
a. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die
b. An old friend who once saved your life
c. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about
Knowing that there can only be one passenger in your car, whom would you choose?
2. Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected
murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is John and
that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a lorry driver, a
mechanic, and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of
any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their
man?
3. A man lives in the penthouse of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the
elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. Upon his return, however, he
can only travel halfway up in the lift and has to walk the rest of the way - unless it's
raining. What is the explanation for this?
4. A man and his son are in a car crash. The father is killed and the child is taken to
hospital gravely injured. When he gets there, the surgeon says, 'I can't operate on
this boy - for he is my son!!!' How can this possibly be?

BRAINPOWER: COMPLEX ORGAN CONTROLS YOUR EVERY THOUGHT

AND MOVE

How did you get here?

No, no, no! It's not a question about your conception or birth.

How did you get here? On this page. Reading this story.

The answer is a lot more complex than, "My teacher told me to read it" or "I clicked on
it by accident."

The answer involves thought, as in "I want to get on the Internet"; movement —
pressing the computer's power button and grasping a mouse; memory—like recalling
how to use a browser or a search engine; and word recognition such as "Brainpower"
and an understanding of its meaning.

In short, the answer involves a wrinkled, pinkish-gray, three-pound organ that is primarily
composed of fat and water and goes by the name of brain. You got to this article because that
jelly-like mass topping off your spinal cord fired electrical signals to your hand telling it how to
move. You got to this article because your brain stored information about using a computer
and the definition of words that you learned years ago. You got to this article because your
brain is working.

Keep reading to find out how it functions, if it repairs itself and if the effects of drug use are
permanent.
The power to act

The brain has three major parts -- the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The brain
stem connects the spinal cord and the brain. It controls functions that keep people alive such
as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure and food digestion. Those activities occur without any
thought. You aren't telling yourself, "Inhale. Exhale. Inhale." You're just breathing.

Things are different in the cerebellum. That region controls voluntary movement. When you
want to lift your fork, wave your hand, brush your hair or wink at a cutie, you form the thought
and then an area in the cerebellum translates your will into action. It happens so quickly. Think
about how little time passes between your desire to continue reading this sentence and the
time it takes your eyes to move to this word or this one. It seems automatic, but it isn't.

Neurons, the basic functional units of the nervous system, are three-part units and are key to
brain function. They are comprised of a nerve cell body, axon and dendrite, and they power the
rapid-fire process that turns thought into movement.

The thought moves as an electrical signal from the nerve cell down the axon to a dendrite,
which looks like branches at the end of nerve cells. The signal jumps from the end of the
dendrite on one cell across the space, called a synapse, to the dendrite of another cell with the
help of chemicals called neurotransmitters. That signal continues jumping from cell to cell until
it reaches the muscle you need to wave, wink or walk.

The cerebrum is the largest of the three brain sections, accounts for about 85 percent of the
brain's weight, and has four lobes. The lobes-frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital -- each
have different functions. They get their names from the sections of the skull that are next to
them.

The parietal lobe helps people understand what they see and feel, while the frontal lobe
determines personality and emotions. Vision functions are located in the occipital lobe, and
hearing and word recognition abilities are in the temporal lobe.

A critical age

Because the brain's healthy functioning is essential to living and determines quality of life,
doctors emphasize protecting the organ from injury and chemical abuse.

There is a consensus among researchers that brain cells regenerate throughout life, said Doug
Postels, a pediatric neurosurgeon in New Orleans, but that new growth happens very slowly
after a certain age.

"The size of the brain doesn't increase much after 3," Postels explains.

During the first three years of life, the brain experiences most of its growth and
develops most of its potential for learning. That's the time frame in which
synaptogenesis, or the creation of pathways for brain cells to communicate, occurs.

Doctors generally accept that cut-off point for two reasons, Postels said. First, in
situations where doctors removed parts of the brains of patients younger than 3 to
correct disorders, the remaining brain sections developed to assume the role of the
portions those doctors removed. But when physicians performed the same surgery on
older patients, that adaptability function did not occur.

Second, "We know from experiments that if you deprive people of intellectual
stimulation and put them in a dark room, that it produces permanent changes in the
brain," Postels said. "That occurs most dramatically before age 3. After that age, it's
impossible to ethically do a study."

Previous research produced information about the effects of stimulation deprivation,

but modern ethical guidelines prohibit such research on people because of the
potentially harmful outcome.

Drug damage

Because so little recovery occurs to brains damaged after age 3, the effects of drugs
and alcohol on the brain might be lasting.

Doctors know what inhalants, steroids, marijuana, cocaine and alcohol do to the brain
when people use them. "The question scientists can't answer now is if the damage is
permanent," said Sue Rusche, co-author of "False Messengers," a book on how
addictive drugs change the brain.

Inhalants, such as glue, paint, gasoline and aerosols, destroy the outer lining of nerve
cells and make them unable to communicate with one another. In 1993, more than 60
young people died from sniffing inhalants, according to National Families in Action, a
drug education center based in Atlanta.

Studies have found that marijuana use hinders memory, learning, judgment and
reaction times, while steroids cause aggression and violent mood swings. Ecstasy
use is rising among young people, Rusche said, and scientists have found that drug
destroys neurons that make serotonin, a chemical crucial in controlling sleep,
violence, mood swings and sexual urges.

While doctors and scientists know about some effects drugs have on the brain, they
don't have a full picture, Rusche said.

"When people start using a drug, the scientists know nothing about it. These people
are volunteering to be guinea pigs," said Rusche, who is co-founder and executive
director of National Families in Action. "Once enough people take it, scientists apply
for grants and start studying it. People are inventive. They find new drugs or new
ways to take old drugs-like crack from cocaine.

"There's a lot we won't know about until later," she said. "The classic example is
cigarettes. We allowed people to smoke for 100 years before we knew about all the
horrible things that nicotine will do.

Source: Christy Oglesby, CNNfyi Senior Writer, December 5, 2000 from

http://edition.cnn.com/fyi/interactive/news/brain/structure.function.html
THE DOMINANT SIDE OF THE BRAIN

Researchers believed that brain dominance determines a person’s preferences,

problem-solving style, personality characteristics, and even career choices. For example, a
right-brain individual will quickly get a feeling for a situation, while a left-brain person will
usually ask a lot of questions first. The following chart reflects the additional differences
between left and right-brain dominance.

PERSONAL PREFERENCE

LEFT DOMINANCE RIGHT DOMINANCE

Classical music Popular music

Being on time A good times

Careful planning To visualize the outcome

To consider alternative To go with the first idea

Being thoughtful Being active

Monopoly, scrabble, or chess Athletics, art, or music

There is nothing good or bad about either preference. Both orientations can be equally
successful in accomplishing a single task; however, one may be more appropriate than the
other depending on the situation.

YOU CAN GROW YOUR INTELLIGENCE

New Research Shows the Brain Can Be Developed Like a Muscle Many people think of the
brain as a mystery. They don’t know much about intelligence and how it works. When they do
think about what intelligence is, many people believe that a person is born either smart,
average, or dumb—and stays that way for life. But new research shows that the brain is more
like a muscle—it changes and gets stronger when you use it. And scientists have been able to
show just how the brain grows and gets stronger when you learn. Everyone knows that when
you lift weights, your muscles get bigger and you get stronger. A person who can’t lift 20
pounds when they start exercising can get strong enough to lift 100 pounds after working out for
a long time. That’s because the muscles become larger and stronger with exercise. And when
you stop exercising, the muscles shrink and you get weaker. That’s why people say “Use it or
lose it!” But most people don’t know that when they practice and learn new things, parts of their
brain change and get larger a lot like muscles do when they exercise.

Inside the cortex of the brain are billions of tiny nerve cells, called neurons. The nerve cells
have branches connecting them to other cells in a complicated network. Communication
between these brain cells is what allows us to think and solve problems.

When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain actually multiply and get
stronger. The more that you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells
grow. Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible to do—like
speaking a foreign language or doing algebra—seem to become easy. The result is a
stronger, smarter brain.

How Do We Know the Brain Can Grow Stronger?

Scientists started thinking that the human brain could develop and change when they studied
animals’ brains. They found out that animals who lived in a challenging environment, with other
animals and toys to play with, were different from animals who lived alone in bare cages. While
the animals who lived alone just ate and slept all the time, the ones who lived with different toys
and other animals were always active. They spent a lot of time figuring out how to use the toys
and how to get along with the other animals. These animals had more connections between
the nerve cells in their brains. These animals had more connections between the nerve cells in
their brains. The connections were bigger and stronger, too. In fact, their whole brains were
about 10% heavier than the brains of the animals who lived alone without toys. The animals
who were exercising their brains by playing with toys and each other were also “smarter”—they
were better at solving problems and learning new things.
Even old animals got smarter and developed more connections in their brains when they got
the chance to play with new toys and other animals. When scientists put very old animals in the
cage with younger animals and new toys to explore, their brains also grew by about 10%!

The Key to Growing the Brain: Practice!

From the first day they are born, babies are hearing people around them talk—all day, every
day, to the baby and to each other. They have to try to make sense of these strange sounds
and figure out what they mean. In a way, babies are exercising their brains by listening hard.
Later, when they need to tell their parents what they want, they start practicing talking
themselves. At first, they just make goo- goo sounds. Then, words start coming. And by the
time they are three years old, most can say whole sentences almost perfectly. Once children
learn a language, they don’t forget it. The child’s brain has changed—it has actually gotten
smarter. This can happen because learning causes permanent changes in the brain. The
babies’ brain cells get larger and grow new connections between them. These new, stronger
connections make the child’s brain stronger and smarter, just like a weightlifter’s big muscles
make them strong.

The Real Truth About “Smart” and “Dumb”

No one thinks babies are stupid because they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned how to yet.
But some people will call a person dumb if they can’t solve math problems, or spell a word right,
or read fast—even though all these things are learned with practice. At first, no one can read or
solve equations. But with practice, they can learn to do it. And the more a person learns, the
easier it gets to learn new things—because their brain “muscles” have gotten stronger! The
students everyone thinks as the “smartest” may not have been born any different from anyone
else. But before they started school, they may have started to practice reading. They had
already started to build up their “reading muscles.” Then, in the classroom, everyone said,
“That’s the smartest student in the class.” They don’t realize that any of the other students could
learn to do as well if they exercised and practiced reading as much. Remember, all of those
other students learned to speak at least one whole language already—something that
grownups find very hard to do. They just need to build up their “reading muscles” too.

What Can You Do to Get Smarter?

Just like a weightlifter or a basketball player, to be a brain athlete, you have to exercise and
practice. By practicing, you make your brain stronger. You also learn skills that let you use your
brain in a smarter way—just like a basketball player learns new moves. But many people miss
out on the chance to grow a stronger brain because they think they can’t do it, or that it’s too
hard. It does take work, just like becoming stronger physically or becoming a better ball player
does. Sometimes it even hurts! But when you feel yourself get better and stronger, all the work
is worth it!70:10:29 –